


everything's going to be fine

by Prim_the_Amazing



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Illustrations, The Corruption, some sasha tim and jon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 18:08:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20139754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prim_the_Amazing/pseuds/Prim_the_Amazing
Summary: The Corruption clings. It smears and infects and stays and gets worse. You don’t touch it and come away clean.After Martin Blackwood becomes an Archival Assistant at the Magnus Institute, he gets chased and trapped by Jane Prentiss in his apartment for two weeks. He has a brush with the Corruption.He survives, but he’s not okay.





	everything's going to be fine

**Author's Note:**

> The illustration was done by [squeeneyart!](https://squeeneyart.tumblr.com/post/621188977121165312/it-will-be-good-cw-the-corruption-rot-decay) Check their stuff out!

The Corruption clings. It smears and infects and stays and gets worse. You don’t touch it and come away clean. 

After Martin Blackwood becomes an Archival Assistant at the Magnus Institute, he gets chased and trapped by Jane Prentiss in his apartment for two weeks. He has a brush with the Corruption. 

He survives, but he’s not okay. 

Martin goes back to his apartment. He has to. All of his things are there. Even his wallet. Jon offered him a place to stay, which was a kindness he hadn’t even known he could hope for and is so relieved over that he could cry (he  _ did _ cry, ducking into the bathroom as soon as the statement was over because his eyes were burning and Jon looked uncomfortable enough to crawl out of his own skin). But he can’t expect for Jon to go and buy him a toothbrush and hygiene products and clothes and shoes and everything else he needs to get from one day to the next. He  _ at the very least _ needs to get his wallet. 

He should have grabbed it before he left the first time. This is own fault. He needs to just-- deal with it. It’s fine. Just a quick trip in and out, he won’t even have to close the door or anything. It’s not like everyone will assume everything’s fine if he just disappears with nothing but a text _ this _ time. That would be-- ridiculous. Awful. 

Martin has been standing at the base of the stairs leading up to the level his apartment is at for ten minutes now, not moving a muscle, breathing as little as possible, and listening very, very closely. In case she came back. In case she’s standing at the other side of the corridor, waiting to chase him back in there, except this time she’s had the chance to fill his apartment  _ full  _ of worms, writhing and glistening and covering every single square inch of the floor and he’ll be stuck between them and Jane Prentiss behind him and she’ll-- he’s-- 

The woman who lives next to him that he’s exchanged less than five words with and somehow didn’t hear his screaming and banging on the walls for two weeks but  _ can _ complain about him getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom walks down the stairs and his heart stops for one long moment before she registers as Not Prentiss. She walks around him and doesn’t bother making eye contact or muttering hey, and he’s too frozen and terrified to try either. 

His heartbeats unsteady. Stupid. She doesn’t even look anything like Prentiss, short and round instead of tall and, and hollow. 

She came from the hallway he needs to go into. She didn’t get eaten. He won’t either. Prentiss is gone. 

(For now.) 

He has to run up the stairs to make it even happen, has to throw open the door that he didn’t even lock when he left, scramble through his things and clothes to find and snatch his wallet, not slowing down for even a moment because if he does then he’ll  _ freeze, _ she’ll  _ catch him. _ He finds it in the pocket of a pair of pants that he used to insulate his bedroom window against anything that would try to sneak in through the crack after the first time he woke up to a  _ worm _ in his _ hair.  _

He’d screamed, is the only thing that he can remember. And he’d killed it, somehow. He grabs the entire pants without wasting time fumbling to get the wallet out of the tight pocket and runs away without taking a single other thing. 

The whole thing took less than a minute, panicky and urgent the entire time. He did not take the time to look closely. He did not try to see how grimy the windows were, or how the cobwebs in the corners were covered with so many bugs that they sagged and broke, dead flies filling ceiling lamp to the brim so that even if he flicked on the lights he wouldn’t be able to see anything through the sheer volume of them blocking the light. He takes what he needs and he runs back to the Institute, where he knows that he’ll be safe. 

In broad daylight, surrounded by other normal human beings, Martin buys himself shampoo, a toothbrush, toothpaste, some sweats, some underwear and socks, a backpack, and some shirts. The bare minimum of what he needs, bought as cheaply as possible. He keeps all of his things inside of his backpack once he moves into the unused breakroom that Jon offered him, intending not to spread out. He feels like what Jon’s doing for him isn’t exactly… allowed. Which means that Martin shouldn’t be obvious or get caught. He doesn’t want to get Jon in trouble just for helping him. 

He doesn’t want to have to go back to his apartment. 

The break room is… nice. He thinks. He’s definitely not going to say anything different. He’s very grateful. 

… It’s obviously not a place meant for someone to live and sleep in, though. It is what it is, which is a break room that no one even bothers using. Probably because the other one is bigger and closer to everyone else. The coffee machine is broken, the fridge unplugged, the floor waxy linoleum that looks like it hasn’t been washed for… a few years. It has a couch that Martin can sleep on, though, which is what matters, even if he has to curl up to keep his feet on it and try to ignore how lumpy it is. He’s lucky. This is good. He can just plug in the fridge, and he prefers tea anyways. 

… He should have bought a blanket. He doesn’t want to leave the Institute again so soon, though. It’s fine. He can just… spread some shirts over himself, he guesses. 

There’s a shower that the sanitation staff can use but never do because no one likes public showers. Martin uses it after everyone’s gone home. It’s too large and every little noise echoes loudly. He washes his hair and watches strands clump together and get caught up in the drain. He’ll have to watch out for that. Clean it out every once in a while. Leave no traces. Don’t get Jon in trouble. Don’t get thrown out. Don’t get eaten. Or worse. 

This is when he notices it. There’s-- a smudge. At the bottom of his ribs, to the left. It’s not a bruise. It doesn’t  _ feel _ like a bruise. Doesn’t hurt when he presses down on it. But it doesn’t wash away either, when he rubs at it. What is it? It isn’t a perfect circle, wobbly and spread out more in one direction than the other, about as large as half of his palm. It’s a dingy dark sort of gray color. There wasn’t anything like that the last time he looked, he’s pretty certain. Or maybe it’s been there for months and he just hasn’t noticed? He tries not to look at himself when he’s showering. He doesn’t like to. 

He doesn’t like this thing either. Is it… cancer? Is this what an overgrown mole looks like? It can’t be a birthmark, no matter how long its been there it hasn’t  _ always _ been there, he’s positive. 

He stares at it blankly, not knowing what to do, and eventually just turns off the shower and leaves. He forgets to clean the drain. 

He googles cancerous moles on his work computer and loses his appetite, but at least it doesn’t look anything like what’s on his skin. Should he go to a doctor? 

… Martin likes hospitals even less than he likes leaving the Institute. He can wait until he feels other symptoms. Right? It doesn’t even hurt. He feels perfectly healthy. It’s fine. It’s okay. He doesn’t have to leave. 

He does have to leave, though. To get food. Luckily there’s a little grocery only two blocks away from the Institute, so he fills his backpack to bursting (temporarily putting all of his things in a pile by the couch, but he’ll clean that up) with food and jogs back because he feels like if he sprints then people will stare, and he’s being paranoid. 

He keeps looking over his shoulder while he’s out, though, and he avoids alleys or empty streets. Stick to the crowds. Not too hard in London. 

He plugs in the little fridge in his abandoned break room and listens to the hum of it. It sounds like a droning swarm of flies. The inside of it is… dusty. Sticky. But it’s fine. Everything he’s bought is in plastic bags and containers. He’ll clean it out later. He’s tired now, though. He turns off the weak flickering lights and lies down on his lumpy couch. 

The gray patch of flesh is bigger. Darker. He stares at it under the too bright lights of the shower room, burning the irregular shape of it into his brain. He lays his hand over it, and doesn’t completely cover it up. Just because it’s not a hand shape, though. 

He presses down on it, hard. It still doesn’t hurt. Not at all. So it can’t be too bad. 

He watches it, unsettled, until the water goes cold. And then he leaves without washing his hair, wet hair left behind to fester in the drain. 

There’s something about the fridge that smells bad. It hadn’t when he’d moved in, and it’s been less than a week. This must be why it was unplugged in the first place. There must be a wire out of place somewhere in there, pressing plastic up against them frantically running motor. 

It’s not a burned smell, though. 

But it's been less than a week. His food can’t be rotting already. He opens it up and goes through everything, touches and smells and looks at it. And it seems fine. The smell stays. 

He’s tired. It’s not an urgent or a serious problem. He goes to sleep. When he wakes up, he’s used to the smell. 

He skips taking a shower. He doesn’t need to. It’s not like he’s worked up a sweat or anything. He’ll do it tomorrow. 

And he doesn’t want to see if that dark gray patch has grown even more. 

It probably hasn’t, he tells himself. He feels fine. 

“Martin, have you seen--” Jon says with an air of distracted impatience, opening up the door to his break room, eyes glued to some papers in his hand, and then he stops. 

Martin looks at him blankly. It’s eight in the evening. Jon should be home. But if there’s one thing he’s learned from living in the Institute, it’s that Jon works some truly horrifying hours. There are dark smudges underneath his eyes, and they don’t look anything like what’s happening to Martin. They look more familiar, less scary. Normal. His hair’s a little messy from him running his hands through his hair in frustration multiple times throughout the day. Martin wants to shoo him to bed. But Jon’s bed is a whole tube ride away, far away from where he can hear him quietly putter around in his office through his cracked open door, comforting white noise to fall asleep to, so distinctly safe and human. 

And Jon wouldn’t appreciate it or listen to him anyways. So it’s not selfish that Martin doesn’t tell him to leave. He wouldn’t be listened to anyways. 

“Yes?” he says promptingly after Jon’s spent thirty solid seconds just staring at the break room. 

“... I was unaware that you are a pack rat, Martin,” he eventually says in the tones of dry understatement. 

He opens his mouth to say that he isn’t and then he actually looks at the break room. 

He’s forgotten to put all of his things back in his backpack. They’re all strewn across the floor and furniture now, disorganized. Empty wrappers. Dirty clothes. He needs to go to a laundromat, but he keeps putting it off. He hates leaving the Institute. 

“Sorry,” he says eventually, feeling his face start to go hot as Jon stares in disbelief at the mess that had somehow happened without him even noticing it. “I’m usually very-- sorry. I’ll clean up.” 

“Yes, quite. Have you seen the files for the Smithson Statement?” 

“Um, I think Tim had it last?” 

“I knew it, he needs to learn to  _ put those back _ once he’s  _ done with them--”  _ and he closes the door before he’s finished the sentence, much less said goodbye or goodnight. 

Martin watches the closed door, wallowing in the embarrassment of Jon seeing him turn the room that he’d given him without prompting or hesitation into a trash can in just a week. And then he gets up to clean it up. He picks up the clothes and stuffs them into the backpack. He takes the wrappers and puts them in the trash. There. Easy. Took him less than ten minutes. He’ll go to the laundromat tomorrow, no matter how much he hates it. He’ll be better now. He just… he let living in a strange place break up his habits. 

Yeah. Everythings going to be fine. 

“What’s that  _ smell?” _ Sasha asks the next day. 

“What smell?” Martin asks. 

“It’s like-- like something’s rotting.” 

“Huh. Maybe there’s mold in the walls?” 

“I hope not. With how stingy Elias is with the budget, he’ll let us all die of allergic bronchitis before he calls someone.” 

Martin dutifully gives a little chuckle, and makes her a cup of tea. She thanks him and drinks it. 

The next day, she calls in sick. 

He doesn’t shower. It’s fine. He doesn’t smell bad. He doesn’t have a mirror, but no one’s made any comments. It’s fine. 

He doesn’t go to the laundromat. The clothes, on second inspection, aren’t that dirty. 

He eats the food from his fridge. There are bugs in there, and every surface on the inside is vaguely wet, sticky, but it’s fine. It tastes good. 

His backpack splits open like an overfilled garbage bag, spilling open his belongings like guts on the floor. It feels like more falls out then he’d put inside, but it doesn’t matter. He’ll just have to keep it all one pile. That backpack was cheap anyways. He’ll buy a new one, the next time he leaves the Institute. 

He thinks ‘leave the Institute’ the same way he thinks that he’ll get married or have kids or retire. Not something that he has to worry about any time soon. It’ll happen eventually. 

“Martin,” Tim says, “are you okay?” 

“Yes? Why do you ask?” 

“You look like shit.” 

“Um.” 

“Sorry, just being honest! Really though, have you been sleeping? Like, at all. Has Jon been keeping you up? Oh man, is he making you do work for him even after work hours because you live here--” 

“No! Jon’s been… Jon’s been great. And I’ve been sleeping fine. Don’t worry about it, Tim. I’m fine. I feel… good, really.” 

“You don’t  _ look  _ good.” 

“Thanks, Tim.” 

“Just saying!” 

Martin decides that he should probably take a shower. 

The janitorial staff must use the showers after all, though. There’s more hair in the drain than there was the last time he was here. A wet pile of it, enough that it could have come from someone’s scalp being shaven to the roots. He turns on the water. The water doesn’t run down the drain, because it's clogged, so it just pools into the cracks between the tiles instead, making small puddles. 

He leans his head back and drinks the water. It isn’t clear, but it tastes good. Tastes right. 

He’s lost his shampoo, so he just lets the lukewarm brackish water pour down on him. Feels it soak into his thick hair. He knows somehow that it won't dry. 

He doesn’t look down at his body. He doesn’t like looking at it. 

He slides one hand down to the spot at the bottom of his ribs to the left, though. Presses down on it as hard as he can like its a bruise that he wants to make scream. He feels nothing. 

Two of his fingers slide into something with the consistency of jello, right up to the last knuckle. Soft and wet and warm. There’s a smell in the showers, aromatic and pervasive. Overwhelming. He stands there, not moving, until he feels something brush against his fingers that are plunged into… something. Something skittering, digging through the wetness, like a beetle. 

He withdraws his hand without looking down, and lets the brackish water wash whatever's left on his hand and float it in the direction of the flooding, clogged drain. 

He doesn’t clean up after himself as he leaves. Abandons the dirty puddles and wet hair and wet something else to become stagnant and smell and grow. 

He hasn’t left to buy new food in weeks now, but the fridge never goes empty. The food inside of the close, cramped, dark box keeps growing and growing, too moist to need watering, too strong to need sunlight. He’s unplugged it. The noise of it bothered him. 

“Martin, have you heard from Sasha--? Martin. You said that you’d clean up. It looks  _ worse _ now.” 

Does it? There are friends here now. Hiding underneath the clothes and the furniture, scuttling away from the light where Jon’s opened up the door. 

“Never mind. Sasha’s been sick for two weeks now. I’ve called her and heard her voice, but I’m still worried. I’m going to head over to check on her. Do you… do you want to come too?” 

He doesn’t want to leave. He likes it where he is. It smells like him now. If he leaves, he’s going to have to start over somewhere else. 

“No thank you, Jon.” 

“Right. Of course, perfectly understandable… I’ll see you later. I’ll say hello to say Sasha for you.” 

He made Sasha tea. 

He hasn’t made tea for Jon in a long while, he realizes. That’s not like him. Jon needs taking care of. He forgets to eat or take breaks if there isn’t anyone there to remind him. Martin’s been neglecting him, when Jon’s been so nice to give him this place where he can spread out and sink his roots deep into the foundations. He can feel the mold and the wetness and the rot and dead and living insects eating each other within the walls and floorboards. He likes it here. He likes it a lot. 

“Thank you,” he says again. “I’ll make you some tea when you get back.” 

Jon, as usual, forgets to say goodbye. Martin smiles, fond, and opens his fridge. He tears out a solid hunk of food with his hand, scraping it off the inside wall of the fridge. 

To make tea with, for Jon. Martin doesn’t like it when he leaves. Jon doesn’t want to leave either, he can tell. So he’ll just… keep him here. Grow over and sink into him, until he reeks of him. Make him go runny and soft until he melts into the floor. 

Bugs swim through his liquified rotted insides, mating, eating, resting. Safe inside of him. Maybe he’ll add some of that too. Some of the wetness of his insides. He wonders what will happen. 

_ It will be good,  _ the insects inside of him tell him, and he listens. They sound exactly like the voice that tells him that everything’s going to be fine. 


End file.
